


The Way to You

by paladinquen (postmodern_robot)



Series: The Way to You (Soulmate AU) [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Speed Skating, i'm just winging this, past Denmark (Hetalia)/Netherlands (Hetalia), past Female Indonesia (Hetalia)/Netherlands (Hetalia)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-13 05:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5696140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postmodern_robot/pseuds/paladinquen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As much as he wants to, speed skating world champion Lars de Boer isn't sure if he believes in soulmates. Matthew Williams has never needed medals or limelight to love his sport, but he's tricked into international competition by his half-brother. Lars is about to find out that there's something to these watches after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Lars de Boer smiled coldly as he inspected the long, razor-sharp blades on his customized speed skates before letting out a short-breath of anticipation. All around him, he could hear the sounds of a crowd getting settled into their seats, chatting with excitement and the echo of artificial camera clicks as they took pictures with their phones.

He looked out at the crowd with an unexpected sense of nostalgia, which was ridiculous because he wasn't retired yet. No, retirement was in a few months' time, when the ice melted with the coming of spring, he would start a new chapter in his life. He had already resigned from his job as a trader with Rabobank, which had been where he spent his time when he wasn’t winning international speed-skating competitions. He had no clear plans as to what the future held, only that he needed something new. His life up to this point, while fine, was losing its shine - it was time for a new challenge. Better to go out with success as well, his body was not as receptive to abuse as it once was, and he would not be able to brush off the inevitable effects of age and injury for much longer. Anyway, he was running out of space for his medals.

For now however, Lars was still a record-breaking world champion and the best speed skater in the world, even in short-track. He wasn't boasting, truly. Anyway, the year was beginning and these were mostly qualifying races. 

"Are you done stroking that ego of yours?" A familiar voice laughed behind him. Lars turned and raised an eyebrow at his giggling sister, she had just arrived from Belgium the day before - no mean feat as this world championship was being hosted in Calgary, Canada. Behind Belle was the baby of their family, Christian, who arrived on the same flight and was pretending to be blinded by the brightness of Lars' orange Lycra and Kevlar bodysuit.

"There's nothing wrong with it when you’re just that good." Lars replied matter-of-factly with a smug smirk as he put his skates down carefully to hug his younger siblings. "Just spoke with Coach Huisman...you know I'm not even retired yet and I already miss it."

"Thirty-five is a good retirement age for this sport," Christian shrugged. "You've had a great run."

"Yes Lars, be fair and give the young bloods a chance to shine." Belle teased. 

Lars shook his head in disbelief. “If you’re talking about that video I sent you, that Canadian isn’t exactly young. He’s debuting at the age of twenty-five.”

But that Canadian - Matthew Williams - skated better than many professionals in fact. That one video had made Williams the talk of the speed-skating world for half a year in anticipation of his reluctant debut. Other than the knowledge that he had to be convinced to compete, and that he was the half-brother of the very famous Alfred F. Jones, the kid himself was a mystery. 

Christian laughed. “And you all missed him, Alfred Jones posted the video, last time I checked he didn’t even touch winter sports. Isn’t he a swimmer?”

Lars shrugged, it wasn’t his job to spot talent. Alfred F. Jones was a ‘swimmer’ in the same way Lars was some speed skater. Eight Olympic gold medals by the age of twenty-five, and a smile like sunshine guaranteed the American enough sponsorship money to last a few lifetimes. He personally thought that Alfred F Jones was an annoying brat, but he didn’t know the kid, so it hardly mattered.

The only time he had willingly clicked on anything related to Jones was when his coach sent him the e-mail. Jones had posted a video to his Youtube Channel called ‘Watch my bro wipe the floor with Tony!’ Tony Porter - a member of the US speed skating team, was not the best, but not the worst either, he’d managed bronze and silver at this level before. You’d never guess it by how easily Matthew Williams beat him in a 10km race. He had lapped him not once but twice and looked like he could have gone and done it a third time if he hadn’t already finished the race. Lars had rewatched the video again and again in disbelief but as far as he could see, Williams’ form hadn’t slipped from start to finish, he found his rhythm instantly, and barely had to even lift his left hand once he got going. The only thing ‘amateur’ about him were his generic skates and suit. Finally Lars had to give up looking for the trick and laughed out loud, because it was always kind of funny to see someone else humiliated like that, and Tony wasn’t the most pleasant man.

Lars raised an eyebrow at his brother. “We’ll see the mystery kid today. Makes you wonder how many more kids like that Canada has hiding in the snow.” His face darkened. “But whatever they throw out, we can’t get soft.”  

"I really don’t think you need to worry about that." Christian laughed. Belle meanwhile just gave him a fond look, she knew him better than Christian did, and had probably guessed that Lars was a little concerned about this Matthew Williams. It was possible that the kid would trip up, competing at this level for the first time. It was also possible that Williams was better at long-track, just like Lars, but not short-track...but it would be folly to assume any of this. From what he could see, Williams looked like he was born to be on the ice, pure and simple. So why, with a famous brother and a country mad about winter sports, did he not compete until now? Did the kid just not want medals? Such a waste in Lars’ opinion.

"Your watch!" Christian suddenly exclaimed.

Lars frowned at him. "What about it?"

Belle and Christian gave him an exasperated look. "You've been so focused on your final year you've never bothered to look at your watch." She stated with disbelief and exasperation.

What? Lars looked down at the familiar thin metallic clasp with a circular face and countdown timer that was finally settling into an accepted space in society. His own parents didn’t have watches, his generation was the first and they had mostly been fairly dubious about them. Still, the kids wearing them today acted as if humanity always had watches and looked at them with reverence. His own watch still had splotches of orange on it from the time he had dipped his hand in orange paint as a child during an over-enthusiastic Queen's Day celebration.

“You both know I don’t believe in it, people need something to delude themselves.” He dismissed.

Soulmate watches counted down the time to when one was to meet well...soulmate. When that happened the damned things would ring like no one’s business, unclasp and not shut up until the matching watches were put together. Honestly, who came up with these things and worse still, how did they work? Someone had explained it to him once but there were just too many variables that he felt required leaps of faith, namely the assumption that reincarnation was real. Some soulmate matches said that they had experienced dreams of previous lives together - brief flashes, nothing concrete, but it all sounded like something out of a soap opera to Lars. He was still mostly convinced that the watches were some kind of conspiracy - a leviathan to keep the populace satisfied, because the watches weren’t a guarantee of happiness either - Lars himself had known plenty of soulmates who had screwed up simply because they took their relationships for granted. The whole concept made his head spin so much, that when he turned twelve and got issued his watch, he had hoped to be one of the very few to have a watch refuse to clasp his wrist, indicating blissful solitude and independence...but who was Lars kidding? Deep down, he was a romantic fool, he just didn’t want to be disappointed by it, so he tried his best to adopt the opposite approach. It didn’t change the fact that the watch brought him comfort, and that ultimately was its purpose after all. It was starting to be proven that these little things actually had an overall positive effect on human society; the promise of soulmates, acceptance and love in a lifetime reduced conflict and crime. How about that?

But Lars’ watch had a long countdown by the standards of a child, soon teenager. He wasn’t one of those who believed in living like a monk until one’s soulmate turned up, besides, didn’t you need practice to figure out what you liked and didn’t like before you met your soulmate? However, dating was a tricky subject when there was that underlying assumption that there was no future to be had with your partner, or that they weren’t the best person for you. This was a common conflict prevalent in his generation; the first to make sense (or not) of the watches.

Lars hadn’t attempted anything more than meaningless encounters since his Indonesian girlfriend of a decade past kicked him out of her life. It still disappointed him sometimes, even though it made no sense. He had tried to pry his watch off for her, to no avail. In the end, when she threw his things out the windows of his canal house into the river, she screamed a lot of words about his so-called possessiveness, embarrassing thriftiness, and emotional abuse. She took him by surprise, because he was fairly comfortable with how things were, probably because it had to end at some point. After Zahra, he had a convenient arrangement with his friend Matthias, but that came to an end about four years prior when he finally met his Norwegian soulmate. This was precisely why he was usually very good at ignoring his watch. Paying attention to it meant thinking about how he had never really figured out how it was all supposed to work.  

"Less than an hour." Belle said, surprised. Fifty minutes less and counting in fact, then she frowned. "This is great but..."

"What?"

"Nothing just, it would be better for your soulmate if you were to meet next year, this year you're going to be too distracted to make it work."

Lars let out a bark of laughter. "Such faith you have in me. If the watch is going off in less than an hour, it's probably a fan. They'd understand, who wouldn’t?" At least he hoped so, it would be a curious thing to see what would happen. But there was no time to think about that now, he had a race to win first.

With that, Lars pulled the Lycra over his watch, and slid his hands into the padded protective gloves. He went about putting on the rest of his protective suit and mentally preparing for the race ahead, watch and soulmate forgotten.

 

* * *

 

One by one they glided onto the ice. Lars grew comfortable entering the familiar frictionless freedom of this world, and soon he'd be flying. His competitors swept in - Tony Porter from the USA, who was probably out to prove something now, Im Yong Soo of South Korea, and finally, Matthew Williams of Canada in a bodysuit of red and white maple leaves. In real life, Williams was bigger and taller than Lars had given him credit for (not as tall as Lars of course, but those strong upper-leg muscles could make up the difference he would lose in his stride), and Lars realized he wouldn’t be able to think of Williams as a kid anymore. He was definitely a newbie though, giving each of his rivals a sweet smile and a wave, before moving to his starting position. It was oddly cute. Yong Soo also grinned back, did they know each other? Focus Lars.

“Ready.”

The athletes crouched, one foot forward, left arm reached back, each coiling up his energy, ready to explode like a bullet with speed and energy. Adrenaline rushing in anticipation, Lars looked ahead to the smooth whiteness of the ice before him, fans cheering and shrill bells ringing in his ears, but he was waiting for that one special sound - the starting gun.

*BANG!*

They shot off, Lars pumped his long legs, running on the ice and building his speed with strong sideways sweeps. He found his momentum and glided, Im and Williams not far behind, then it was time to take the turn, Lars crouched and tilted his body, his left hand’s fingers briefly touching the ice for balance, he felt the slight vibration of the ceramic tips of his gloves before he was up again, pumping, gliding, turning, there went lap one.

Williams was next to him, and he could sense Porter coming up close behind on his right, the ringing still sounding desperate in his ears but the cheers washed that away, turn, run, glide, turn, lap two.

It was a close race between him and Williams for the next two laps, while Porter and Im battled it out, never far behind, but it was the fifth and final lap that would decide everything. Lars pushed it, blades cutting through the ice at breakneck speed with Williams close behind, then he cut in front. Lars cursed himself for losing focus, ‘don’t look at the ass you fool, FOCUS!’. The last lap in a short-track rink was always the most dangerous, but Lars regained the lead.

At the last turn, the disaster struck.

Later, Lars would find out that Im had put in a final burst of speed before the turn and overtook Williams. Porter didn’t want to finish dead last and also shot forward but came a little too close to Im, they collided and toppled over onto Lars.

What Lars experienced initially was frustration, but years of experience in this sport gave him much practice on keeping his balance. Even with that, his arms swung just a tad too hard and his face smacked onto the hard icy floor. Lycra had almost no friction here and he desperately tried to slide over the finish line before his momentum slowed - he’d deal with his bleeding teeth afterwards. What happened next however, blanked out everything else. Im was spinning, trying and failing to stop, or at least regain control of his body, but his ceramic tipped gloves desperately gripped at nothing on the ice, and his slicing blades were swooping towards Lars’ exposed face and neck.

Instead of his life ending, Lars' vision was suddenly filled with red and white maple, then more red...hot red everywhere, on his face, on the ice, and then he heard the screams.

“MEDIC!” Im was screaming. “MEDIC! MEDIC!”

Pulling himself out of his stupor, Lars managed to turn the body on top of him over and instinctively cover the gaping wound on Matthew Williams’ right shoulder, but he only had two hands - Williams was deeply sliced at the hip and arm. Kevlar-lined suits could only do so much when they were made this thin to prevent slowing the skaters down, but right now it might still be enough to have saved William’s life. Did the slice reach his neck? It was impossible to tell with all the blood Williams was losing, pouring through Lars’ desperate fingers. Even if the slice didn’t cut any critical veins or vessels, Williams was still losing too much blood too fast.

“Oh my God.” Lars swore, Williams was pale under him, his glazed eyes looked purple and were wide open in shock behind his blood-splattered goggles. “Stay with us Williams! Stay! Stay awake!”

In the seconds before the medics arrived, Lars noticed that the incessant ringing hadn’t gone away, and that’s when he realized that a metallic strap was sticking out of William’s glove. Not thinking, he pulled at it with one hand. 

Matthew Williams’ soulmate watch - that was where the ringing was coming from. It had gone off during the race.

The medics had arrived and were quickly doing their magic, gently prying Lars away, examining his jaw, while the rest took Williams away.

“Where are they taking him?!” Lars demanded. 

“Don’t talk.” The medic ordered curtly, and placed a bag of ice over his mouth - yes, because that’s what he needed right now, even more ice. It wasn’t a fair complaint but damnit, Lars would complain anyway.

He was led out of the rink, but he couldn’t help but stare at that too wide pool of blood that was thickening and freezing on the ice. Too much blood, how much had spilled out of there so fast?

“Lars!”

Wonderful, now his jaw was so numb he knew he wouldn’t be able to form proper words to speak to his sister, brother, his coach, or the rest of the team for that matter.

Belle, ever intuitive Belle. seemed to understand and was content to sit next to him as the medics made sure he was alright, but then she noticed what he was clutching in his hand. Her eyes widened and she quickly grabbed his wrist reaching under the glove.

“Hey!” That, Lars managed to get out.

As soon as she pulled it out, Lars figured he had rarely been slower on realizing what had been going on. Watches were made light so they didn’t become cumbersome obstacles in everyday life. In this case, he hadn’t noticed his own unclasp, where it remained trapped under his suit and glove.

With a sigh, he took his watch from her hands and stared at the two madly ringing machines. It was easy to hear them now, because everyone else had gone silent. The medics took it as an opportunity to work unhampered. With a deep breath, (just to confirm that these watches weren’t ringing for anyone else), Lars put Matthew William’s watch with its faded maple leaf and canoe stickers face to face with his own and the ringing finally ceased.

Lars looked up at his siblings with desperate clarity. “He-”

“Saved your life, yes,” Christian answered so his own numb jaw didn’t have to. “But right now we need to make sure you’re okay, and then you need to get cleaned up, you’re not walking around all day covered in another man’s blood. While you’re doing that, we’ll talk to the Canadians and find out where they’ve taken your...soulmate. Alright Lars? It’ll be okay, five years ago, you slammed face-first into the side railing and sliced your calf open. Anneke over there, what was it, your hip?” Lars’ teammate standing to the far right, nodded. “Right, and all of you have similar, stupidly gruesome injuries, but you all got back up just fine...eventually. So Matthew Williams will be fine too alright? You just may want to talk to your soulmate about doing things like...having the balls to fall between a pair of razor-sharp blades and another body. I mean, I’m grateful to him today because I still have my brother, but still...it’s not exactly behavior that guarantees your soulmate a particularly long life, you know what I mean?”

Lars glared at Christian. “He loss.. zoo muj blood.” He managed to get out with an irritating slur. “I nee zo go.”

“Mr de Boer, we have the best medical teams working on this competition. What can be done is being done.” The medic who had been treating Lars said. “Mr Williams is getting the best care he could get and the procedures will take time.”

The medic was neither a relative or anyone he was concerned about not pissing off at the moment. “Where is he?” Lars demanded with the most threatening persona he could muster.

“He could be in one of three hospitals." The medic shrugged, not intimidated at all. "I suggest you listen to your friend’s advice and get cleaned up while he takes care of things. Go easy on the jaw, you’re very lucky there was no break or dislocation but it will still bruise. Soft foods, ice…” Lars knew the rest, he was no stranger to injuries. For the first time in his life though, his worries were spinning so fast in his head he was getting dizzy, he needed to see Williams...Matthew. They were soulmates right? First name basis made sense. He needed to see with his own eyes that Matthew would be alright.

“Come on Lars.” Coach Huisman lifted him off his seat with Christian’s help and they dragged him to the locker room. At this point, Lars knew two things for certain - he was actually damned lucky to have siblings like the ones he had and -

“Way to go Old Man! Go get him!”

“Williams is pretty cute!”

“You rob that cradle!”

“He’s Canadian! Oh Lars, Oma will be so happy!” Belle gushed.

Three things - his teammates had no sense of timing, now he felt like a sleazy old man (he glared at his watch for this), and finally despite all that, he was starting to believe in the watches now. The desperate feeling he was having at the prospect of losing his soulmate after meeting him for just a few minutes was threatening to overwhelm him. If Matthew was lost, nothing would ever feel right again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matthew dreams of the past.

Somewhere in the murky, drug-induced darkness, Matthew floated. It was like swimming through glue, except he couldn’t really feel his limbs. But Matthew was definitely starting a journey of some sort, or a roller-coaster ride, something deep and soul-changing, or rather, soul-finding. It was terrifying and exciting all at once, but he didn’t understand - how was he here? Why was he here? The colors came as a wave crashing against him, and Matthew saw...

_The man was lost - that was her first impression of him. He spoke her language badly, but there were more and more foreigners like him coming to her part of the world these days. They had some novel things to sell, and it was always interesting to see what new cultures and people could bring. However, he  was trying to sell her something - stupid. What kind of idiot tried to sell things when they were lost in the forest?! Shouldn’t he be asking her how to get out? Fearing he would die if she left this idiot lone foreigner there, she led him to the river and eventually to her people to care for him until he recovered enough to be on his way (it was never in her nature to turn her back on someone in need, perhaps it was because her brother was also a reckless fool)._

_Years passed and her stranger always returned to see if she was living happily - he never forgot that she did save him. He wasn’t as stupid as she originally thought, only unfamiliar with the rules of her land. Now however, he had learned from her people the best ways to travel the waterways of her country, and joined the active trading up and down the Great River. He learned her people’s language, their ways, and his business had improved. She asked him once where he came from and he called his land the Low Country, a bowl of land that could be filled up by the sea at any time. It seemed to her, a rather reckless way to live, but he explained that his people had learned to live with that, digging deep canals through the city so that trade and lives could thrive. He always said that he wasn’t ready to go ‘home’ - home was only one place in a larger world, and it didn’t seem right to leave the corners of the world in darkness in one’s mind._

_In the end he never went back. Over the years he joined her community, and though he always had his own eccentricities, he had chosen his new home. Eventually they made one, together - their happiest moments as a family came from simple things, like huddling together for warmth against the blistering cold outside with their children. Laughing whenever she looked at him like he was an idiot, holding her whenever he returned from a trading journey like he never wanted to let go, and she in turn would nuzzle into the belonging she felt in his arms. It was not always easy for them, he was a foreigner after all, but their togetherness brought warmth, love, and comfort; an adventure always in the making. When they were together the world was simply ‘right’ and it was a feeling so simple and so complex at once that she was grateful for the great oceans and waterways of this earth that brought them together. She tried to tell him this once, wrapped up against him for warmth as they often did, a nice warm meal in their bellies. He smiled and kissed her, and told her that his people had one word to describe that feeling, that defined what their life together was -_ gezellig _._

_“Hkgheszilleeg?” She stumbled on that unfamiliar word and frowned as he laughed against her neck. She supposed she had been spoilt, he had learned her language (he had arrived as a visitor in her nation after all, so of course he did). Her knowledge of his language was rudimentary, but they were a family now. That would change._

What is this? Consciousness was a tricky thing here. Matthew had never dreamed like this before. He recognized the landmarks of his home, and he was looking at Morrison Island on the Ottawa River, but this was a more ancient time. Also...he was the girl turned woman, and his foreign husband seemed...familiar. Matthew turned and saw another past form around him…

 _Dear God he itched! Give him harsh winter weather and darkness any day! He had only been here for two hours and he was already covered in mosquito bites. He shielded his eyes from the unforgiving tropical sun and wondered why his father insisted that he had to join him here on the opposite side of the world. Well he knew why. His father was a British merchant who was now based out of Dutch Malacca - ‘Dutch’ his father still called it that out of habit, despite the fact that the Dutch homeland was now part of the French Empire. No wonder his father sought to stay as far away from Europe as possible, so he now traded and did his business in the East. It appeared that he had a bit of heart in him to make sure that his only child, a 17-year-old son born of a dalliance in Upper Canada, was also as far removed from the conflict as possible. British America was still a little too close to the main conflict, despite being across the ocean. So here he was, fresh off the boat and hopelessly lost. This golden land of eternal summer was as opposite from everything he knew as he could imagine. At least he had managed to find his way to what looked like the center of the city. Dark-skinned local men stared at him curiously as they poled their long wooden boats up and down the river against a backdrop of narrow townhouses, their bodies lean and muscled from hard living. Behind him was the church and city hall, the_ Stadthuys _, stood as evidence of that faraway nation’s golden age of exploration. Perhaps it was beautiful, he did not know because he could barely breathe in this tropical humidity._

_“You must be new.”_

_There was dry but amused judgement in that tone. He could have sworn he heard an underlying question there: ‘How stupid must you be?’ It felt strangely familiar, but when he turned to confront this man he felt...speechless to say the least. Speechless and ashamed, because…no, you are going to join father soon, he paid to bring you all the way here and teach you the business, you cannot bring shame upon him, you cannot think about that, you must not desire...and this man cannot possibly be the same. He gave the man the address of his father’s office. “Could you guide me there?”_

_The man, tall, blonde, and tanned was not that much older than him. The stranger gave him an incredulous look before shaking his head. “You are much too naive. Follow me.”_

_Even if he was being led to some crime, what choice did he have? He followed. His stranger as it turned out was Dutch by nationality, but had been born in Batavia before his family decided to move to Malacca ten years past. His Dutch guide had all but grown up in the East, and it showed – speaking various local languages with a fluid musicality that he had to struggle not to fall into it. It was definitely the long way around, better to fit in the deepest and most interesting conversation he had ever had in his life, but the man did eventually lead him to his father's office._

The rest of that life was actually fairly content. His past self stayed in Southeast Asia, learned his father's trade and eventually did risk allowing himself to fall in love with the curious Dutch boy who found him in front of the _Statdhuys_. If it weren't for his soulmate, Matthew was sure this past incarnation of himself would have run back to Canada as soon as he was able, but 'home' and the meaning of it eventually shifted from the land he had been born in to the man that he would never be able to happily live without. They later became business partners publicly, and if anyone suspected their actual personal relationship, well...they were far away from anyone who could overtly judge. However, not all of their lives would be so content or happy...

_He couldn’t believe the gall of these Boers - backward farmers who had decided to challenge the British Empire, what were they hoping to achieve? Independence like the United States? His southern neighbors had set a troublesome example indeed, what would happen if everyone in this world declared wars of independence? A world filled with thousands upon thousands of nations? It was just too unrealistic. Well, he was a soldier of the Empire, so he bid farewell to lovely Vancouver, took a train across his nation, and sailed this unknown land. On his first day after landing in Cape Town and seeing the sun set over that side of the ocean, he gazed in awe upon the splendour of this land’s natural beauty. Through the years he fought, sad that blood had to be spilt in such a place. There was something about South Africa that called to a human’s soul...the natives said that this was the oldest land on earth and the origin of all life. He cynically thought that all native peoples felt the same way about their lands, but here he could believe it._

_The hardest thing he had to do that gave him the worst nightmares, was to take the Boer women and children from their homes and throw them into the camps. Their men could end this if they only surrendered, but they never did, harrying the Empire’s troops in guerrilla tactics, day after day, night after night. And so, he saw the women and children die by the hundreds, in slow and painful starvation and disease. Still their men fought. Of course they would - they had nothing to return to. He started to wonder if he had any business here - was Britain's war really his war as well? He hadn’t seen her until it was too late, tall and proud, despite how her cheekbones pointed out from her face. He had to take her and her daughter to the camp, but this time he couldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to, he felt like he had met her before. He gave her his ration pack instead, unsure if that would do anything if she was still hiding from the Empire, but he hoped. He pretended the house was empty and moved on, feeling like something had been lost forever. A day later, he was shot and died of his wounds._

She, he, they, and everything in between, past lives, always meeting and loving the same, familiar person. Their faces changed, but their souls didn’t. It hurt to see their lives when they found each other too late (if they found each other at all, it seemed that they were destined to be born at a distance from each other). It lifted his heart when they met in peaceful or happy times, but their last life before this one was not one of those…

_It’s World War II and she’s a spy. Trained at Camp X in a classified location in Canada, she’s been in the Netherlands for most of the war, recruiting resistance members, bringing Jews to houses that will hide them, sabotaging enemy supplies, and carrying out assassinations that look like accidents or natural deaths. She knows her chances of surviving the war are slim to none, but that doesn’t matter anymore. For now she’s a ghost, the Nazis never find her, she hides right under their noses as a servant in a Nazi commander’s household, but even when she disappears, no one notices. It galls her to see that they’re fairly comfortable in the Netherlands where the terrain is wet and flat and difficult to hide in, so the resistance cells operate mostly independently. It is a challenge to coordinate any of them together, but when they do strike, retaliation is swift and brutal._

_When she receives orders to meet a new local contact, she’s sure it’s a trap - her new contact is a darling of the Reich, a rising Dutch actress with the height, blondness, and practical sensitivities to match their preferences. The actress lives a double life as a smuggler, she can get anything in or out of the Netherlands; it’s amazing really, and it doesn’t take too much to imagine why this could be a mutually beneficial relationship. Besides, it’s wartime - you never know who’s the ally or the enemy, but she settles on thinking that this actress is ultimately acting on self-interest and is a bit of both._

_God she’s beautiful. This isn’t news, but in real life the actress exudes a lingering and unforgettable presence with just a look - no words and she’s already memorable. It’s a terrible trait for a spy. The actress needs help - she’s got a network hiding Jewish families but they’re running out of space and the Nazis are getting close. She needs more families willing to open their doors, and she needs a few men dead. Killing the men is easy, but transporting families across a terrain that hides nothing to their new shelters is another matter. Unfortunately, her orders tell her she can’t kill all the men - too suspicious (she’s a little too good at it). It would come back to haunt them later._

_But before that, the impossible (the inevitable, from the first moment they had met) happens. You can’t control who you fall in love with; so the ghost fell for the woman who couldn’t be a ghost, even if she wanted to be. It’s madness, because of their situation, because they’re both women, because of many other even more ridiculous reasons, but death has marked them anyway and the world hasn’t made sense for a long time. Despite the war and the ugliness of what they do, that grayness goes away when they’re together - cold is replaced with warmth, loneliness by a belonging that has transcended time and war to bring them together again and again, a new opportunity to make something right, a sanctuary. But it ends. This life is one of the few times she doesn’t manage to save her soulmate’s life. She’s too invisible, and no matter how much she tries, in the end, the Gestapo take her love away._

_They were looking for me...they should have taken me..._

Oh God, Matthew wants to cry. He can’t though, not in this place, as much as he needs to. He sees his most recent incarnation attempt to live through the rest of her life alone, after Canada liberates most of the Netherlands, he sees her coordinating on the ground, making sure that food and supplies get to where they need to go, and then she returns to Canada, never quite sure what to do with herself since she didn’t expect to live that long. He sees himself, herself, live carelessly and recklessly. She survived the war, but she barely made it ten years after losing…

_That life ends, a short waiting occurs, and another begins..._

Matthew Williams is born on a chilly day in July - an exceptionally cold year, even for Canada. It wasn’t snowing, it just wasn’t as hot as it should have been in summer. His father wasn’t there, he was a management consultant who specialized in energy, always be on the move. Anyway, his parents weren’t married. His mother was a policewoman, and despite whatever movies the Americans made about Royal Canadian Mounted Police riding horses up and down the border, singing, and smiling, they had a fairly normal life, first in Montreal, but when Matthew turned eight, they moved to Ottawa.

Matthew and his mother only found out about Alfred and his mother after the car crash. Matthew was five when his father died, and was just a little surprised to have a half-brother just four days younger than him. The surprise didn’t last long, children make friends very quickly at that age. The women that his father had loved decided fairly quickly that Matthew and Alfred had to be brothers in mind and heart, not just by blood. Matthew sometimes wondered who wouldn’t have been born if his father had a soulmate watch. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference. Actually, Matthew suspected that his father would have been the catalyst to bring the two soulmates who mothered his children together, and then would have been asked to father their sons anyway...

It was practically a cliche, how Alfred was a summer child - exuberant, talkative, tanned, and popular. Of course, Matthew was his direct opposite -  introspective, pale, a little shy, and careful. Matthew was annoyed by his brother sometimes, and they probably went out of their way to be as different from each other as possible, but their mothers had been successful, there was a true bond between them.

And that is why Matthew would have never touched a competition if Alfred hadn’t intervened. That sneaky bastard. Alfred was the celebrity who defined his worth through popularity and medals, though you could never tell him that to his face unless you wanted him to cry. Matthew just loved the ice, he was on it every day, first playing hockey, and eventually giving in to the adrenaline of speed skating. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t just Alfred. Matthew knew most the professional speed skaters in Canada, met them in rinks, trained with them, raced them and won. They had been asking him to join the team for years but he just didn’t want to compete. Matthew was simply content with his life; medals wouldn’t change that, but an invasion of the way things were could.

Matthew wondered how many of them were in on it, and when the other guys and girls got Alfred in on the con. When Matthew visited Al over Christmas, Tony was just asking for it - did he know any word in English besides ‘fuck’? After Tony insulted the red, white, and maple (damnit, he had been spending too much time with Alfred) one too many times, that was it, he was going down. He challenged Tony to a race and...well the rest was history by now.

“You’re going to thank me for this!” Alfred laughed after seeing his brother finally suited up in team colors.

“No Al, I’m pretty sure I won’t.” Matthew huffed. Who let his brother into the Canadian team’s lockers anyway? Further proof of everyone’s guilt.

“Well I will if you beat Tony again, he’s been an ass since I posted that video.”

“Tony’s been an ass since long before you posted that video Al.” Matthew closed his locker.

“Stop being moody,” Al put on an obnoxious grin. “You’re just nervous! Don’t be, you’re the fastest guy on skates I know. I’ll bet you’ll even beat the orange guy! Then you’ll have to take down all those pictures-”

Matthew slammed his locker shut, blushing furiously as he grabbed his brother close. “You breathe a word to anyone about those damn posters I used to have and I will make sure the world knows that you’re still afraid of ghosts.” He hissed. “And ‘orange guy’, really Al?”

“Your room, your phone, your desktop wallpaper...and in all of those, he was wearing orange, one whole wall in your room was like a constant box of oranges! Or maybe you want me to call him Mister, and I quote, ‘Poetry on Ice Al! Look at him! He’s perf-mmph”

Matthew clamped his glove on top his brother’s mouth and started yelling, “Last Halloween Alfred F Jones cried like a -!”

“Fine! I’m stopping I’m stopping! Really Mattie? Come on, don’t do that to me.” Alfred replied with puppydog eyes.

“That was a long time ago!” Honestly, Matthew had taken those down after graduating from high school. They were embarrassing even to him. He let his brother go. “And okay, you’re right, I’m a little nervous, I’ll be fine once I’m out there though. And no Al, don’t bet money on me beating Lars de Boer! That’s a whole different level and he’s going to be amazing this year, at least if the rumours are true, and he’s planning to retire. He’d be trying to go out with a bang...or something.”

“Your watch!” Alfred grabbed Matthew’s arm to get a closer look and got even more excited. It barely seemed possible.

“I know Al,” Matthew muttered, pink in the face. “I've been trying not to think about it, the timing is just...I don’t know, I guess we’ll find out eh?.” He shrugged.

Alfred ruffled his hair. “It’ll be brilliant Mattie! You deserve someone it, don’t worry.” He laughed nervously. “And with your Mom and my Mom here, and Alice too, your soulmate will get to meet everyone at once. That'll be interesting.”

Matthew shifted on his feet. “Yeah, but I have to race first. It's a bit of a chaotic time to meet someone.”

Alfred shrugged. “Is there ever a 'right' time? It'll take work no matter what.”

Matthew had to give his brother that point, but Alfred was a little more experienced with these things, having met his soulmate when he was a teenager. One would think that would make for a romantic story, and it mostly was, except that Alfred and Alice had a tumultuous beginning, but they were pretty stable now. Thank goodness too. Matthew was so glad when they sorted themselves out and he could stop being that guy that both went to vent about the other to. “So when are you going to ask her?”

Alfred turned pink and shakey. “She'll say 'yes' right? I mean we are soulmates, but you know how she likes things done and she may think that I'm not ready to be married yet, but I AM ready to be married to her!”

Matthew smiled with a sigh, it looked like his role as 'that guy' would never really end. “Al. Don't be a chickenshit.”

“I'm not a chickenshit! I'm a hero!” Alfred shot back.

Matthew rolled his eyes and pushed his brother out the door. “Yeah yeah hero, man up. I need to finish getting ready now.”

Not too long later when Matthew is finally (finally!) on the ice, and what an incredible relief that is. He knows most of the guys there - Tony he’s not worried about, Yong-Soo is all smiles as usual and...Lars de Boer, mister ‘poetry on ice’ himself is...a lot hotter in real life than he is in videos and pictures, even though he’s not as young as he was when Matthew first started watching him. Matthew gets a nod and he’s surprisingly not flustered by all this. Maybe he should have actually listened to Alfred all those years ago, because he feels comfortable here. Sure, it’s loud, he can barely hear anything over the screams of the crowd, the adrenaline reaching a crescendo in his veins, and the ringing of whatever mysterious bell that was, but his body is singing with the anticipation of speed, control, and freedom, as if this is where he was all along.  

In retrospect, they’re clearly both pretty stupid, not knowing what those bells were. Matthew had no idea what the ringing was even when he saw the accident about to happen in front of him. There was no time to think, he saw Yong-Soo’s desperate scrambling, and Lars, and did what he felt needed to be done.

 _Ah...so this is where I am_. Matthew Williams’ life doesn’t feel much different than the ones shown before, for all he knew, some of the lives he had seen hadn’t happened yet. However, awareness of how things should be is coming back to him. Matthew is lying down in a hospital bed, echoes of voices sound in the distance - Mama’s, Al’s, Alice’s and Aunt Amelia’s (familiar); another voice, deep, accented, unknown, (it should be unfamiliar?), yet simultaneously so familiar - he’s heard that accent, that intonation, that concern before, he has just heard it, he knows this feeling rising up within him, welling in his chest, overflowing with relief and happiness.

_“I found you…”_

Love, comfort, warmth, belonging, adventure, sanity, rightness, _gezellig_...

Matthew reaches out, swimming out of the glue.

 

* * *

 

‘ _Tabernak_ , why is it so bright?!’ Matthew thinks when the opens his eyes. He hasn’t even opened them much before he has to close them again. He’s forgetting something, a lot, usually he doesn’t mind, he doesn’t always remember his dreams but these, something...it’s important.

 “Mattie?!” Alfred’s hopeful voice comes close until he knows that his brother is at his side. A hand gently squeezes his shoulder and Matthew knows it’s Alfred’s.  

 “Llmfwd…” Matthew manages to get out. The world is still so unreal and his mouth feels like it’s filled with cotton-balls.

 “Dude, I guess you’re still really drugged up. No don’t move! Docs and nurses are coming and...yeah!” Matthew hears Alfred running out to get someone, his pent up energy having been coiled in for too long.

Matthew couldn’t move even if he wanted to. It was still comforting however, to feel his mother’s familiar hands on his face, her thumb caressing his cheek. “Lie still and go back to sleep now if you can, love.” There was a pause in her voice that Matthew vaguely caught but couldn’t fully process. “It’s going to be a rollercoaster ride when you’re ready...”

 Somehow he did sleep, desperate to return to whatever it was he needed to remember.

 

* * *

 

The second time Matthew opened his eyes, it was better, probably because the lights were off. His mother was asleep on an armchair in his hospital room (a whole room? Wow there were perks to joining the national team after all) and someone else was sitting next to him. Matthew found that he couldn’t move his head, or much of himself for that matter, he was half covered in some kind of immobilizer. However, his eyes could see the end of...a really long pair of legs. Damn, Matthew was no shorty at 186cm in height (6’1, his brain automatically converted for Alfred, amazing how much of Matthew’s brain did these things), and it wasn’t often that he met people taller than him.

He heard the sounds of pages rustling, and something placed on a table. Finally, Matthew came face to face with...oh, wow.

Lars de Boer looked tired but relieved. A small smile graced his lips, a slight pink settled over his cheeks. “Hello.” He greeted, somewhat shy, and surprisingly gentle.

Matthew never expected that the man could be shy. Selective with his company yes, but not shy, but what did Matthew know? He was perfectly happy to take in the view of the man standing before him, now busying himself with moving his chair over so that Matthew could speak to him more easily.

“Hi...” Matthew managed to respond back somewhat uncertainly, then the rest of his body woke up and caught up to the present. He simply knew. “This may sound crazy but...are you my...soulmate?” Flashes of color in the background caught his eye. “Wow! Where did all these tulips come from?!”

Now the man actually did blush, but Matthew’s exclamation awoke his mother, who smiled and moved towards the bed. “You’re much better this time, love.” She greeted before hugging him carefully.

“I should leave you both alone.” Lars said as he stood. “Help out with the-”

 “Don’t be silly Lars.” His mother cut in. The words were kind but Matthew knew that tone, it was his mother’s ‘police tone’ and he had never known anyone to disobey it unless they were really looking for trouble. “You’ve done so much, it’s about time you finally met my son.”

Matthew squeezed her hand with the one that still worked well. Lars had to be his soulmate, there was no way his family would allow him in here if he wasn’t, but he knew his mother would be protective. They were all protective of him for some reason. “Mom I’ll be fine.” He smiled. Then he looked at Lars. “Nothing to be worried about eh? I’m only getting better from now on.”

His mother smiled at him and kissed him gently on the forehead. “I’ll be outside.”

It was kind of funny, how awkward it could be to meet your own soulmate. With nothing else to break the silence and the increasing intensity of Lars’ expression, Matthew said so. The man’s face immediately softened, crinkling into quiet laughter. It was a curious thing to Matthew how such an intimidating visage could turn into something so light and familiar. Lars de Boer’s beauty before today came from his incredible control of his body on the ice. Now despite the scar over his right eye that made him look like a movie villain (Al’s words, not his), he was just a man, not a legend. That was intriguing and so much better actually.

“Yes, it is, but I don’t for one moment believe that this isn’t right...I mean that we’re not right, no! Of course you being in a hospital bed is not right I...sorry.” Lars turned his face aside and muttered something in Dutch, clearly irritated, before turning back. “What I meant to say was, I just wish that we were brought together in a kinder way, so that you were not hurt like this, but I’m beyond happy to meet you.” After a pause, Lars frowned in irritation. “My English is usually better than this, trust me.”

Matthew shrugged, at least he tried to. “It’s leagues better than my Dutch, so don’t worry. You’ll have to help me correct that though.” Matthew winced, too much too soon? Was there such a thing? “I mean, you are my soulmate right? That’s why you’re here and I’m not wearing a watch any more?” A thought suddenly occurred to Matthew. “Oh wait! Did I get that wrong? Are you just here to thank me for...if so don’t worry about it I mean I was just doing the right thing, I don’t think anyone would have stood by and let that accident happen if they could have done something! Oh sacre, I hope I haven’t just embarrassed myself if you’re not actually my soulmate…” Of course he’s hooked up to the heart monitor, and there’s no hiding how excited/embarrassed he is with how fast his heart is beating. This isn’t fair!

Lars wordlessly lifted the two joined watches in his hand with an amused expression. He recognized his own of course, but he actually did recognize the orange paint-splattered face of the other one (he wasn’t a fanboy, nope he wasn’t).

Matthew let out a breath. “Oh, great. Ha...sorry about that.”

Lars shrugged, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. “You just told me you wanted to learn Dutch, what are you apologizing for? I’m the one who hopes that you’re not disappointed. I am about a decade older than you, my personal history that’s actually known to the public doesn’t always show me in a good light, and I know that the media on this side of the world is not very fond of me because I always win and I’m proud of it.”

Matthew raised an eyebrow, was this guy serious? Well if his soulmate was going to set a trend for honest communication maybe that was actually a good thing. “You’re kidding right? I’m the kid here, and I’m …” How was he supposed to say that he was the one that people generally forgot about? He’d grown used to it, accepted that he was happy with who he was, but Alfred’s personality was simply the type that grabbed more people’s attention.

“You alright? If you need more rest we don’t need to have this conversation right now. I’m not going anywhere, but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable either. Just want to let you know that,” he grinned outright. “I really don’t have a problem with your age, trust me on that. I don’t have a problem with you, period. Of course in the future we’ll probably have some irritations to overcome together but that’s just...being in a relationship. You’re smart, you’re hot, you saved my life. Your mother is admittedly frightening, but she hasn’t killed me yet so I suppose that’s a good sign. Okay, your brother is one of the most annoying people alive, but you? You’re kind of perfect. The ONLY thing I would ask of you is to temper that hero complex a bit, it’s dangerous to your health, but you've been out for a few weeks and in that time I've gotten to know your family. That hero thing may be genetic, unfortunately, but...ah fuck, I’m rambling. I can’t fucking believe this. I never ramble.”

Matthew couldn't really believe this. His soulmate thought he was kind of perfect? He thought Alfred was annoying? He was actually nervous speaking to Matthew?! He was still dreaming! Speaking of dreams, he had dreamed something important, he knew he had.

“You're kind of perfect too...”

Oh crap did he just say that out loud? Shit! _Merde_! _Tabernak_! Fuck!...Matthew mentally ran through every expletive he knew in both the languages he was fluent in. His heart-rate monitor was too honest, making Matthew feel even sillier, but Lars only stared at him in some kind of befuddlement turning even more red.

Alright, this was ridiculous. Flat out ridiculous.

Matthew couldn't stop himself he started laughing.

They were both such fucking dorks!  

Then Lars started laughing too, and oh no why did he have to do that? Now Matthew wouldn't be able to stop! But the laughter was cathartic in a way because that was all they did for the next...who knew how long? All Matthew knew was that the tears were leaking down his face and his stomach hurt so bad, but it was alright because it felt so good. Lars was too perfect in real life, especially bent over in his seat, his head on the bed because he couldn't hold himself up any more.

When they finally calmed down, Lars shook his head ruefully and took Matthew's hand. “We're quite silly aren't we?”

“Looks like it.” Matthew agreed. “You know I can't remember it exactly but I think our lives have always gone well whenever we start off a little silly, so this is good.”

Lars raised an eyebrow at that. “Oh? So what they say about dreams of our past lives, that's all true?”

Matthew shrugged, unsure how to communicate what he felt. “I think it is. I can't remember it though, that's what's so frustrating. All I remember now is that I saw something important and...” He sighed. “I suppose it would be cheating to have seen everything, and remember it now. But yeah, it wasn't always good, the world can be a cruel place after all, but...” He tried to squeeze the hand that was holding his, but Lars was holding the hand on his bandaged side. He didn't actually have full sensation there, that was worrisome, but deep down Matthew knew he would eventually be alright, he would skate again, he would be as strong as he ever was, stronger even. “But I think that, this feeling I have now, with you, laughing, discovering, excitement, comfort, the rightness, all of it. It feels familiar, it just...it just feels good Lars, I don't know how else to put it, there's so much about this that's wonderful, one word can't really do it justice.”

Lars looked up curiously, a smirk forming at the corner of his lips. “Actually, there is a word to describe this...”

 

* * *

  

“You _are_ sure about this Lars?”

Lars looked up at the lined face of his coach who had basically served as a second father throughout his career. “The surest I've been for a long time.”

But Coach Huiseman had seen too many retired athletes fail to adjust to normal life or fall into depression after stopping the one thing that used to drive them so thoroughly. “Lars, most people make this decision and have a year or so to adjust to the idea, as you originally planned. It's not just a matter of stopping altogether, there will be empty hours of your day that you used to spend training that you'll need to fill up. There will eventually come a time when your name won't easily roll off people's tongues. You will see new kids come along and break your records, and their hands will be held high as the crowd cheers them on in a way that they're never going to do for you again...All I am asking is that you make sure this is exactly what you want and you are at peace with it. It will be unfair to you, and this soulmate of yours, if you force yourself to an early retirement for him and grow to resent him later for it. He's a good and nice young man Lars, he doesn't deserve that, and you've been waiting for him a long time, you don't deserve that either.”

Lars nodded, even as he stared out the window at the blustering winds blowing outside. He had thought about all this of course, had told Coach Huiseman not too long ago that the medals and cheers were boring to him now, everything was too easy, but it was one thing to think that while still living the life he had known for many years, and actually facing its reality before he had planned to. As for the second part of his plan after retirement, Lars had been to Canada before of course, it was a mecca for winter sports and he had competed here many times. He had also grown up with his grandmother's stories of the heroic Canadian troops who liberated her town and saved her from a limited diet of tulip bulbs – anyone who gave a little girl a bar of chocolate after she had been starving would forever be remembered as superheroes. As a boy he and Belle would go with her to place flowers and little Canadian flags on the graves of those from that vast land across the sea who had travelled so far to die liberating his country. He also stood in the crowd on Liberation Day, celebrating the parade of those veterans who returned, a deep part of him wishing to let them know how grateful he was, even though the war had been long over by the time he was born.

In short, other than Matthew (and they were still learning and discovering each other), Lars knew two aspects of Canada – their speed skating scene and everything he had learned about the Second World War; including the Hunger Winter, Liberation Day, and the reason why Ottawa had the largest tulip festival in the world. These were wonderful things, but limited things indeed to suddenly decide to stay behind in the country itself and live here for however long it would take for Matthew to recover. The equivalent would be someone who knew that the Dutch liked speed skating and was once a global trading power, moving to the Netherlands for an indeterminate amount of time, and thinking that they knew enough about the country to be completely fine...

“It's a risk.” Lars acknowledged.

Coach Huiseman gave him an exasperated look.

“But I have thought it out. I'm not being forced to retire before my time, I've achieved everything I've set out to achieve in the sport and more. I've been done for a while now Coach...I just didn't know what to fill it with so I stayed until I found that. Now I've found him. I'm not giving up speed skating for Matthew, I'm moving onto a new chapter in my life that I've been avoiding because I've...” He sighed. “There's more to me and my life than speed skating. I'll always love it, but what difference will a few months make? Retiring now or later in the year won't make a difference, especially since I'm already ready to let it go. But if I don't have the courage to challenge myself now to move forward to the next chapter of my life, if I leave Matthew behind – the man who saved my life, who is my soulmate - because I don't know what to do with myself but skate for another few months? Because what...there aren't enough pictures already taken of me? Because one more medal will make up for it? I'll regret that for the rest of my life and I won't deserve him. Not one bit. I won't resent Matthew if I stay, but I will resent myself if I'm too much of a coward not to.”

Lars could tell from the look on Coach Huiseman's face that somewhere in there, he had said the right thing. With a smile, his coach nodded.

“Sounds like you have it right.”

“Of course I do.” Lars scoffed, feeling a little lighter inside. He didn't want to leave on bad terms with this man. It was a little sad, knowing that once this competition was over his coach was flying back to the Netherlands with the rest of the team and leaving him behind, but Lars was ready and accepting that this chapter was ending.

Coach Huiseman smiled, almost looking like there was a glistening in his eyes, but took Lars into a hug before he could confirm it.

“Good luck Lars. Good luck to you both.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- The Great River is the Ottawa River that defines the present-day boundary between Ottawa and Quebec. The Kichespirini (an Algonquin tribe) traditionally controlled trade on this river from their base on present-day Morrison Island. Before the founding of the Hudson Bay Company in 1670, Europeans traded with the First Nations people of Canada by getting out to where they lived - canoeing up and down vast river-ways. The establishment of the Hudson Bay Company eventually changed this practice by setting up trading posts that attracted customers to go to the buyers, rather than the opposite. Though most of these pre-HBC traders were French-sponsored, in reality these traders came from all over Europe.
> 
> \- Malacca/Melaka is a historic city in present-day Malaysia that used to be the center of a trade kingdom that flourished in the early 14th century. It was then conquered by the Portuguese in 1511, who lost it to the Dutch in 1641. The Dutch governed Melaka for almost 183 years except for an interlude of 23 years starting from 1795 in between when the Netherlands was conquered by France during the Napoleonic Wars. The Dutch mostly held onto Melaka just so that their rivals couldn't hold it, and they based their main Southeast Asian trade out of present-day Jakarta (the Dutch named this city Batavia). That isn't to say that nothing was done in Melaka though, it was less prone to malaria outbreaks at the time, and merchants of course could make their living there.
> 
> \- Concentration camps were not invented by the Germans in World War II, they were invented by the British to be used against the Boers during the Second Anglo-Boer War. The Boers descended from early Dutch settlers and decided to take on the British Empire for independence, carrying out a guerilla war. The British called for troops from all their colonies, and 7000 Canadian troops, including 12 female nurses served in that war. The British believed that imprisoning the families of the Boer commandos would break their will to fight...and it just got worse from there, conditions in the camps were terrible and many of the women and children would die of starvation and disease. 
> 
> \- Camp X was a paramilitary and commando training station and telecommunications center for the Allies, located in Canada. There's a really awesome Canadian TV show based on this place called 'X-Company' (I highly recommend it!). A lot of spies were trained there as well, including Ian Fleming (the guy who wrote James Bond) and Roald Dahl. It was also where US spies were sent for training even before entering the war. 
> 
> \- Gezellig - you know, I debated including this word in this fic (out of fear that I would misuse it) but I added it because one of my Dutch friends taught me its meaning a while ago (that whole imagery of people huddled together for warmth and coziness because it's freakin' freezing outside comes from that 'lesson'). It didn't seem right while writing a story that included a Dutch character to not at least, try to include the word because it's a very important one (hence, the fear that I would get it wrong).
> 
> \- When Matthew swears in French, he happens to use a few words that are related to the Church. According to this language program I saw, swear words in Quebec are church-based (due to the province's rather interesting history with the Catholic Church). 
> 
> Thank you to random friends, language programs and Wikipedia! As always, mistakes are all mine.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Falling in love is just step one.

Ten months after he met his soulmate, Lars found himself staring forlornly out the window of his Montreal hotel room, holding his phone uncertainly.

“Ah fuck this hurts.” He clutched his chest with resignation and sank into the chair next to him. He knew they would have a real fight...eventually. Couples had to learn how to fight well didn’t they? But as much as Lars had heard about how terrifying Matthew could be when he finally lost his patience, he wasn’t really prepared for it. Matthew didn’t raise his voice or act irrationally. No he was worse. He just stood there, glared at you with such intensity that you would never be able to look away, and told you every single way you were the worst person to ever walk the earth. And he could go on forever too. Lars was never going to make fun of Alfred again, because he had seen Matthew snap at Alfred once before and the only reason why it stopped was because Alice intervened. At the time, Lars had laughed. This time, Matthew had kept himself in check. After what felt like ages (only about an hour of having to hear all his faults thrown at him by someone he actually cared about), Matthew stopped himself mid-rant, looked exhausted and just said “I’m going for a walk.” Matthew did exactly that. Lars then decided they both needed a break and got a hotel for the night, leaving a note.

This was not the productive first fight he had envisioned. He also hadn’t envisioned driving Matthew to such a point, or that this feeling of helplessness would ensue - he had no idea what to do to fix this right now, so it was time to swallow some pride and get some help. Lars scrolled to the familiar name in his address book, finger hovering over it. Finally he pressed down before he could lose his nerve. Lose his nerve? Lars could laugh, that was such an unnatural feeling for him. He heard the ringtone begin with that echo common to long-distance calls and made a quick mental calculation. ‘She should pick up, it’s afternoon there.’

“ _Halo_?”

He found he couldn’t really say anything.

 “Lars?! I know this is you, I don’t know anyone else with a Canadian number at the moment. Is the connection bad? Can you hear me?”

 After another pause. “Hello Zahra.”

 “There was a mistake in the financials wasn’t there?” She let out a heavy sigh, but Lars cut in before she could continue saying...whatever it was she thought was the case.

 “No, this has nothing to do with the business.” Even though he and Zahra had broken up on less than good terms, they reconciled about two years afterwards. Zahra had moved back to her native Indonesia and was much happier for it. Once Lars recovered from the blow to his ego, he realized that he was better off too...eventually. With Zahra's return home came a personal awakening and a business idea, which she pitched to him. Lars knew a good business case when he heard one, so he invested into Zahra’s food business. She expanded from a single cafe into into a coffee empire, owning several plantations and was branching out into new industries. Now, his ex-girlfriend was busy spreading her burgeoning empire across the region. As an investor, he mostly cared about his payoff, so he often helped to look over the financials. He often called to pointedly bring to attention some suspicious accounting - Zahra was adamant about setting an example for anti-corruption in her country. It also turned out that he and Zahra got along best when they were doing business, and Lars was located too far away for them to irritate each other.

 “Lars…” She sighed testily. “It has to be 2am at least over there. What did you do?”

 He winced, Zahra had always been smarter than he was when it came to emotional affairs. “I messed up. We had a fight.”

 She huffed with impatience but her response was tinged with sympathy. “And…?”

 “And in retrospect, it’s been building up for a while. Today he just blew up, took a walk. I figured we’d just continue fighting if I was still home because neither of us would be cool about it. So I left him a note and got myself a hotel. We’ll talk in the morning once we’re both capable of thinking again, but first I need to get your opinion on well...some things because I don’t want to repeat any of my past mistakes.”

 Surprisingly, there was no response from the other end. Did the connection drop? “Zee? Hello? Can you-”

 “ _BEGO LO_! Where do you even…?! No, HOW do you...oh don’t answer that. GO BACK HOME YOU COWARD!” Then she hung up.

 He had forgotten quite how emotional she could get over things like this. Still, amongst all the things she could have called him, ‘stupid’ wasn’t all that bad. Shaking his head, he pressed redial. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t pick up. So he continued redialing until she finally picked up again.

 “I’m only answering because you’re so stupid _monyet_.” She huffed, calling him by the old nickname that he wasn’t all that fond of but couldn’t really argue against. “And I realized a few things: I keep seeing an international number so you’re not using a calling card, and you’re not using a free service to call me so you must be desperate. Now usually when someone is desperate, I’m nice. But, this is you, so I’ll be blunt. Why can’t you understand that you have to go home?”

 Lars grit his teeth. “Because as you so clearly yelled earlier, I’m stupid. Zee, you don’t understand, Matthew is the most...patient person I have ever met. He’s not a pushover of course, but he’s patient and accepting and for him to get that angry-”

 “Stop stop, I don’t know if I can manage this new Lars de Boer who attempts to be self-aware.” She took in a deep breath and sighed. “Alright. How about you start from the beginning? When did it go from honeymoon to you staying alone in a hotel room? Wait, a hotel? Are you paying for the room? As in using your own money?” She didn’t have to sound quite so incredulous.

 Lars decided to ignore her last question and answered the more important ones. “I thought the hard part would be in the beginning, right after he was almost sliced in half.” He gritted out. The memory of all that blood still gave Lars chills. “I remember how frustrating it can be to be stuck and unable to move. When you’re used to intense training for at least 14 hours a day, then you can’t even move your head? It’s maddening. Matthew couldn’t move for a month, his muscles and tissues needed to knit themselves back together, hell, his whole body needed to recover. You don’t lose 38% of your blood and bounce back. After he could move again, we had a brief misunderstanding.” His voice hardened at the memory. “But we resolved that fairly quickly. Overall, the beginning was actually good. We spent a lot of time just talking.” He couldn’t quite bring himself to say out loud that he never wanted to stop learning more. That he never thought it could ever feel so good to just discover what drives another person, that was a little too personal. So were the nightmares he had where Matthew never woke up, and it was all his fault. “Sometime around then, I decided that whatever it was that Matthew wanted to do, I was going to help him. I’ve had my time, now it’s going to be all about him.”

 She made a noise.

 “What?”

 Even though she was silent, he could tell from her breathing that she was still somewhat exasperated with him. “And when he could move again? Then what?” She asked, curtly.

 “Then we started planning his road to recovery. Matthew wanted to skate again. I was the best person to help him get there. It felt good to be useful.”

 She made a noise again. “Did Matthew want to skate again, or did you want Matthew to skate again?”

 Lars rolled his eyes. “Matthew wants to skate again. I’m done with the sport remember?”

 She stayed silent, but again, Lars knew...he just _knew_ that she was shaking her head at him. “Lars...this is...I don’t even know how to ask. But alright, you’re done with speed skating, as you said. So...what have you been doing with yourself?”

 “A lot actually. We moved to Montreal because Matthew is finishing up his MBA at McGill. Even though he’s technically a part-time student because everyone thought he’d be competing this year, with the recovery he thought he should move back and get a bulk of work done so he doesn’t have to take all five years to finish the degree. Québec by the way, has a whole different system of bureaucracy, rules and ways of doing things than the rest of Canada, I’ll have you know, but I won’t bore you with the details.”

 “But you speak French right? That’s not an issue?”

 Lars flat out laughed. “I speak Belgian French, enough to pass the tests to earn the right to be considered for residency here but, the French that’s spoken in Montreal is...quite different. I am getting used to the accent though, because that’s how Matthew speaks French. He spent a lot of time in Québec as a child, albeit in one of the more bilingual areas, so that’s fine, I get practice at home. The language part is actually quite enjoyable for me.

 “But, you know how days can fill up when you move.  Matthew offered to take me on a tour of Canada once I was settled, but Canada is...it’s _huge_ Zee, I can’t even describe it! When he offered, he really meant the whole country. We did a tiny part of that, when he could walk again we went out into the national parks around here. Matthew says when he’s fully recovered he’ll teach me how to make a birch-bark canoe. It’s kind of frightening, how talented he is. But taking me around the whole country the way he wants to would take at least two years and that’s if we rush it. So we ultimately decided that it wouldn’t be fair to postpone Matthew’s burgeoning career just for him to play Canadian tour guide. We have plenty of time to travel and explore when we’re were both retired together. Since then I’ve bought some property in his name, working on turning them around. I’m also thinking about making one of my other hobbies a money-making enterprise.”

 He didn’t like the silence he was hearing on the other side as she mulled over what he said. “Alright." He was surprised that she didn't have anything else to say about it. "So, when did the tension begin?”

 It was getting more and more difficult to answer her questions because yes, Lars was not the most emotionally developed person out there but even he could tell where it had started going wrong.

 “Training. Matthew told me he wanted to be competition ready for next year. He’s pretty far ahead in his coursework already, he may as well be a full-time student. He did push back some things to be able to train though. He has a team and coaches, but you know how I can be when I know I’m right.” He ran a hand through his head, glad that she couldn’t see that.

 He expected a familiar angry outburst, he was quite surprised when she burst out laughing instead. “I never thought I’d hear the day when you would regret that one trait of yours. So how does he handle you when you’re ‘right’?”

 Leaning back in the chair he gave a self-depreciating smile. “He stands up for himself of course. At first politely, then even more firmly. Then well, he’s like a rock when he thinks _he’s_ right. I guess I need to back off on his training, stop giving my opinion on it every moment of the day, making fun of his team when they don’t do things the Dutch way...and when I do that, I do still feel loyal to my team. I’m not going to share, especially not for free.”

 She paused. “I can’t...oh Lars I’m imagining it right now and I already pity him. You’ve been this irritating almost everyday for months? Matthew has incredible patience. But you know Lars, it sounds to me that you’re rather indifferent to the sport now, but you’ve been immersing yourself it in anyway, and no one is gaining from this situation. Why can’t you stop? Do you really feel that he won’t well, love you if you don’t?”

 He always hated how close she guessed his feelings, mostly because when she was right she was absolutely right. But when she was wrong you could never convince her that she was...which was starting to sound familiar. “Zahra, you remember how long I used to train. That’s most the day, every day. If my friends weren’t from the sport, I already knew them or met them as a kid in school. If I’m not part of Matthew’s training somehow, we may as well not see each other. And you’re right. If I can’t do this I’m not really of any use to him. Maybe I can be a kind of business manager? Handle his sponsorship and endorsements…”

 He heard some kind of smack on the other end, along with a frustrated groan. “ _Aduh_! You’re really...okay let’s try a different question. What are you going to be for Matthew ultimately? A coach? A business manager? Here’s a novel one...how about a soulmate?”

 “Everything.” Lars frowned at her tone. That was the simplest answer right? He could be a jealous man after all. “I want to be everything for him. I wouldn’t even be alive right now without him.”

 “Clearly that weighs on you,” Zahra replied with a gentle tone. “But...he’s alive and so are you. That’s reality. Have you asked Matthew if he wants you to be everything?”

 Lars opened his mouth, as if to say ‘of course, that’s what a partner is’ but stopped. The hesitancy emboldened his ex-girlfriend to barrel on.

 “And is that what you want Matthew to be for you? Everything? As emotionally selfish as you are capable of being, I know that you're smarter than this Lars.”

 He snapped his jaw shut. “Matthew is already everything to me, I don’t need  him to coach me, or any of these things. I’m further along in life and frankly speaking Zahra, I know a deal when I see one. I don’t know what I’ve done in my past lives to deserve him but I know I’m not the nicest or most generous person out there. So far I’m not convinced that Matthew is getting his fair end-”

 “Don’t you dare say deal! This is a relationship, not a business. I know that money and sport is familiar to you while relationships...well…” She softened her tone. “You don’t have to know everything you know. Part of the fun is learning together.”

 “That’s why I’m trying to spend time with him.” Lars grit out. “Even if it means being in a rink, or the gym, or rollerblading most the day.”

 “Lars there’s...spending time and there’s being together. You’re not this dumb. Stop being scared and ask your soulmate to be more honest with you as well. You seem to be willing to listen and grow with him, and from what I hear of him, he does too. But right now, it sounds like you’re both assuming a lot. Did it ever occur to that he could be going along with what he thinks you want so that you can be happy? That circular consideration may work for me, but it doesn’t work for you, you need things more straightforward than that. And since Matthew is your soulmate, I suspect he needs that too.”

 Lars thought about it, mulling over her words. Eventually, he couldn’t help but let out a quiet chuckle. All this time he was trying not to repeat his past mistakes based on the only experience he had with a person who wasn’t compatible with him anyway. No wonder it wasn’t going well.

 “What’s so funny?”

 “Just a bit of role reversal isn’t it? I remember I used to think you were crazy sometimes, but now that I’ve pretty much done what you did - leave my homeland and put Matthew in this position of being my new home. Well, it’s not exactly the same of course, but it does give me a little perspective.”

 She didn’t say anything, leaving an uncomfortable silence on the other side. Oops, he had overstepped the comfortable bounds of honesty again - something he had often done with her. He could have confronted it, bring attention to the breach and call into question the value of ignoring the truth when he was just trying to acknowledge a previous wrong against her. Further thought however, led him to decide that this would be a poor way to repay her when she had taken time out of her day to listen to him. She deserved more than that. So he did what she would do and changed the subject instead to something she would not be able to resist talking about. “Anyway, how are the kids?”

 She laughed a little incredulously, then gratefully and answered that her eldest was just starting school - a little trooper right up until he realized he’d have to leave the car and not see _Ibu_ for the day. Then he cried and wouldn’t let go. Parenthood really hurt sometimes but she was happy. They caught up for a little while after that, and Lars was a little surprised to find that he enjoyed the conversation. He was genuinely happy for her. For all their business dealings in the past years, Lars was never interested previously in catching up with her personal life except to maintain a pretense of civility...mostly so he could tell people he wasn’t the crazy one. Now it all seemed rather silly. She had been there for him when he needed her - he had met her as a young man exploring Indonesia for the first time on an internship where her hospitality made him feel at home. The dating only happened afterwards, when Belle and Christian left to find their own lives, leaving him feeling rather lonely with the silence after having worked so hard to support them.  He had found his sport by then, but being so dedicated to the perfecting of one’s body was ultimately too, a lonely affair. While the attempted passion was perhaps borne more from this immediate emptiness and a desire to rebel against the system more than anything else, she was still the woman who had sacrificed so much of her time and heart to try to love him. In his own way, he had once cared too. They would always be a significant part of each others lives.

 “Well Lars, it’s getting late for you, and I have a meeting soon. Well, not soon, but you know Jakarta traffic, I’ll have to leave now. I hope it helped to talk things out. And really, make sure you go back first thing in the morning. You left your home with only a letter for heaven’s sake. Matthew must be worried. Oh, check your messages.”

 “You’ve been a great help.” He stretched out, relieving a bit of tension and feeling a little lighter. “Next time you want that peppermint candy, I’ll give you a…” he was about to say ‘discount’ before stopping himself. “I’ll send over enough boxes for you and all the kids so no one needs to fight over them. No charge.”

 “Waaah!! Enough! I don’t think I can handle so much of this new version of you! It’s weird!”

 “Next time we talk, it’ll be all business, as usual.” He promised with a smirk.

 “Good good. When you guys make up, remember to bring Matthew to Indonesia. I’ll feed you both so much he’ll never want to leave and then what will you do? Goodbye _monyet_...and good luck.”

 She hung up with a click and Lars held his now warm phone in his hand, caught in a strange state of nostalgia and clarity. Then he did as he was told and checked his messages. His heart sank into his chest, she was right. There were several concerned messages from Matthew as well as missed calls. For the first time, Lars regretted turning off call-waiting because he hated how it beeped when you were trying to have a conversation with someone. Ah shit. He put his phone back to his ear and listened to Matthew’s phone ring. It wasn’t answered, so he tried again. Nothing. Well that wasn’t good. Mad scenarios ran through his mind before he mentally stopped them, grabbed his room key and strode outside.

 He was completely prepared to walk home if that’s what it would take but it didn’t take that long. He saw a familiar blonde head at the concierge.

 “There’s no answer.” The lady said in that Québécois French that he was still learning his way around. “And I’m sorry I cannot give you the room number.”

 “But he is here?” Matthew confirmed, sounding tired.

 Lars stepped up behind him. “I hope you’re asking about me?”

 Matthew turned exhausted eyes to him and breathed a sigh of relief. “Lars, I’m sorry for following you, I’m sure you wanted to be left alone but you never answered and I just wanted to make sure you found a place and you were alright. I was going to leave you alone after-”

 Lars interrupted. “Come upstairs?” He hoped he didn’t sound dismissive.

 Matthew shook his head in surprise. “What? You…”

 “I tried to call you, I only saw all the messages and missed calls just now. You didn’t pick up, I guess you were walking on the street? I was about to go home since well, it’s clear neither of us are really going to sleep. So how about we have a staycation and sort this out? I made sure that Nijntje had enough food before I left, I have the room for the night at least, and breakfast tomorrow is already paid for.”

 When Matthew didn’t answer, Lars added. “Only if you want.” He sighed. “I’m not sweeping the fight under the rug _liefje_ , but I am hoping that we can call a timeout to fix the misunderstanding that’s been growing over all these months. I left the apartment because I thought you’d need a break from me and yes, I should have asked rather than assume that it was the best idea for both of us. How about we just get a good night’s rest, turn off the alarm clocks, sleep till we want, eat a good fill of a meal and then, once we’re rested, well fed and better than we are now at least, we talk? I mean actually talk. I haven’t been completely honest with you,” At the alarming widening of Matthew’s eyes he quickly added “But it’s mostly just small things because I thought that you didn’t need to be bothered by them.”

 Matthew opened his mouth, about to shoot something back but snapped it shut. Instead he just sighed. “Deal. Now let’s get some sleep?”

 Lars felt just a little lighter. Later as he climbed into bed, he put a tentative hand on Matthew’s waist on top of the blanket, wondering if contact was okay. When Matthew yawned and scooted closer, Lars let out a sigh of relief and relaxed, falling into deep slumber with his soulmate in his arms. They weren’t completely fine yet, but they would be.

 

* * *

 

Matthew woke up earlier than Lars - a rare occurrence. It figured that on the day he was free to sleep in he woke up wide awake. He leaned back against the headboard as he clutched one of the many hotel pillows, missing the familiar fluffiness of Kumajori, his stuffed polar bear. Odd how he’d had that little guy since he was a kid and could never get the name right. He almost laughed, thinking about how embarrassed he had been when Lars ‘met’ his beloved polar bear for the first time. To his surprise, Lars picked Kumamoro up and played right along with the make-believe ‘do I have your stamp of approval to date your father Kumajiro?’ He had asked with the most serious face and voice. Matthew laughed so hard he was afraid he’d torn his stitches.

 After that, Matthew met Nijnje (he still called her Ninja just to see the exasperated look on Lars’ face, though he had been making good progress with his Dutch and could actually pronounce it right), the pet bunny that had the run of the house in Amsterdam, after it successfully cleared immigration into Québec...and it all kind of made sense. Smiling at the memory, Matthew looked down at Lars still deeply slumbering by his side and considered the sharp angles on the now familiar face. Handsome as always, despite the beginning of age lines appearing on the face, especially with his hair soft without any product in it. Lars was a man filled with apparent contradictions, so simultaneously perfect and frustrating that Matthew almost pulled his own hair out the night before.

 The first ten months were great, but awkward, as expected when soulmates came together for the first time. Well, except that first misunderstanding Matthew had a million and one worries then - would his soulmate recover from the first meeting and think he was uncool? And the big question he had always felt nervous about even as he glanced as his watch face ticking down...what about sex? Matthew had never even had sex before for crying out loud. Usually people experimented a little just to find out what they liked before meeting the one, but Matthew never felt the need to. He wasn’t even sure if he had much of a sex drive, other than a brief crush he had on a Cuban guy who always thought he was Alfred when he was a teenager. Now he was faced with trying to please an older man who had definitely not taken the same route Matthew had in terms of his relationship choices. But sex seemed to be what people did in relationships, so Matthew went along. However, it didn’t take Lars too long to figure out that Matthew was pretty much forcing himself to into it.

 It would be wrong to say that Lars blew up. The last time Matthew had seen Lars blow up was on camera when he was a lot younger, after a particularly irritating reporter asked him one too many stupid questions. The man that stood in front of him was certainly unhappy though.

 “If you don’t want to do it, just say so! I didn’t catch it the first time because I didn’t know you as well then. But now I can feel it. You don’t want to have sex right now? We don’t have sex. Simple.”

 “It’s not that simple Lars. Maybe I just haven’t found out what I like yet and I don’t want you to...anyway, isn’t that what couples do?”

 The look his soulmate had at that point could have melted stone. “Matthew.” He had stated with maddening and stilted calm, despite the look on his face. “I don’t know where you got that idea from, but surely you do know it’s more than possible to be in a serious relationship with someone without having sex with them...and that it’s also possible to fuck a person whose name you won’t bother remembering the next day. Sex is not the only thing that couples just DO, and it is certainly NOT alright if I’ve been forcing you to have sex with me when you’re not ready for it.”

 Matthew still felt particularly embarrassed about that, he also wasn’t particularly successful at convincing his soulmate that nothing had been forced because...well Lars had been right. Afterwards, once Lars had opened a window and smoked a cigarette to calm down, they spoke about it again. Lars as it turned out, had never had sex with this Indonesian ex - she hadn’t wanted to. He also admitted that he had sex with women whose names he had never bothered finding out (Matthew had felt a little mad about that admission, but supposed Lars had proven his point), and that for four years, he had an arrangement with his best friend Matthias. It had started because Lars was at a particularly low point while trying to get over how badly it ended with Zahra (and yes, had smoked something but don’t tell any of the sporting committees or...ANYONE, only Matthias knew about it) and realized that Matthias’ easily bored and manic energy was going to get them both killed before they met their soulmates, if Lars didn’t do anything about it. Sex seemed like a good idea at the time, a convenient arrangement with a complete understanding that this was about discovery and learning... as much as it was about keeping them both alive against stupid things like getting into fights with Matthias’ giant Swedish cousin, on thin ice.

 "What?! Why…"

 And here, Lars had looked worried.

 "Why on earth were you two getting into fights on thin ice?"

Lars relaxed and shrugged, telling Matthew that Lars had been nervous about admitting this. "Because Matthias had a reputation to keep. Anyway, when his clock started counting down we stopped the whole sex thing and went back to the usual hanging out, and back to the dangerously stupid things...but ultimately, that was how Matthias met Lukas. So I suppose it worked out. And you know what? I was never in a relationship with Matthias and I never felt romantic feelings towards him.”

 The inconsistency and apparent absurdity of it all boggled Matthew’s mind. In retrospect, if Matthias had been any less crazy, if Lars wasn’t trying so ridiculously hard to convey how casual and non-romantic that arrangement was, Matthew would not have been distracted at how ridiculous it all sounded. He was so bewildered, that the jealousy took a back seat. While Matthew couldn’t understand how someone could sleep with their best friend for years and not feel any romantic attachment, Lars didn’t seem to be lying.

“Surely if we lived in a world without watches, you would have married your other Mattie.” Matthew eventually got out, not angry, just confused. 

“Matthias is not ‘my other Mattie’, and if we lived in a world without watches, which we don’t, maybe we would have tried out of convenience, but Matthias would have dumped me the moment he met Lukas. After I got over my wounded ego, we’d be friends again, then I would have met you, and then I would understand what a soulmate is supposed to be. See? There’s no difference.”

Oddly, it was after they finished that conversation of uncomfortable truths, and lying down in bed next to a sleeping Lars, that Matthew felt desire stir in him for the first time. But, after the earlier debacle, he hadn’t wanted to initiate sex then and there. It was only after a lot of self research online that Matthew kind of had some answers. No, not all couples had to have sex. Matthew imagined Alfred asking him the question in his head and winced at how dumb it sounded when it wasn’t coming from himself. It was also completely normal to develop sexual attraction later, once one felt emotionally, as well as romantically connected to someone. Apparently, there was a term for it. He was demisexual, no wonder he’d never heard of it before, he’d never met anyone who was. With more questions about himself answered and feeling more comfortable in his own skin, the next time Matthew initiated sex (the first time), it was as glorious as it should have been the first time. They never looked back after that.  

If Matthew had to compare that issue with whatever had happened last night, that one sounded simple, in retrospect. Now, Matthew needed to avoid Lars just to clear his mind. Perhaps it came from a similar cause, he had let his own needs sit and fester, kept his silence and hoped for the best until he couldn’t stand it any more. It all came exploding out in a torrent of continuous attack. In retrospect it probably would have been better if he’d just donned ice skates and challenged Lars to a hockey game or something...not that Lars would have stood a chance, and fights were supposed to be fair after all, and not abusive. Still, Matthew was pretty sure that bombarding an otherwise confident man with a litany of his own faults, with no interest in hearing what the other had to say, wasn’t great either. He sighed just thinking back to it and wanted to hide his head in the pillow.

“...You’re such a hypocrite! You have no respect for anyone! And you think you’re so considerate but you actually think you’re better than everyone else and that you deserve more! And another th---”

A stony-faced Lars just stared back, with his arms crossed. Though he was fighting back in the beginning, he had long since stopped and seemed to just be waiting out the tirade. Matthew looked at the clock hanging on the wall behind him and gulped. He had just been on this said tirade for the better part of an hour, non-stop. Several quiet beats passed before Matthew awkwardly took his phone and said “Uh...I have to walk this off. I’ll be back.” He grabbed his hoodie and walked out the door. 

It was starting to get chilly again, so Matthew walked briskly to nowhere in particular, finally deciding on the general direction of his campus. After about half an hour of aimlessly striding around, he sat down on a bench and dialed Alfred, a little incredulous at their role reversal.

“Hey Mattie-bro! What’s up?”

Matthew choked, he couldn’t really say anything then.

“Hey Mattie, you’re gonna have to speak up, the connection doesn’t-”

“I think I just fucked up Al.”

“Woah....hang on let me just…” Matthew heard some rustling on the other end and a “Alice, babe, it’s urgent I really need to talk to Mattie, could you? Yeah great thanks!” The sound of a quick kiss, a door sliding open - Matthew knew exactly which one - and his brother was out in the garden he shared with Alice under a warmer night sky. Matthew hoped for his brother’s sake that is was a lovely one.

“What happened Mattie?! I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think it is!” Alfred’s concerned tones went back to addressing him. “Did you finally tell him how much it’s been setting you off that he can’t seem to stop making fun of your team?”

“...and then some. It was one of my rants Al.”

There was another beat and then, “Well, as the guy who’s been listening to your complaints the past few months about Lars’ superior attitude thing, I can’t say he doesn’t deserve it. How did he take it?”

Matthew leaned back to look at the stars, taking in a deep breath for strength. “I don’t know Al, I stopped myself and went for a walk. I’ll find out when I go back. I just...don’t want to do this again you know? It’s not exactly productive. I just...I don’t know if I’m cut out for this? Al, this whole relationship thing sounds so much easier when other people are talking to you about it. I thought we discussed all the big things in the beginning but of course new things will always pop up. How do I tell him that my needs change? I don’t know what they are? I’m kind of a go-with-the-flow person? If I tell him that I’m having doubts about skating now, when I thought that’s exactly what I wanted to do just a few months ago, he’ll probably, I don’t know, think I’m a quitter, and he’ll think about why he gave up everything he knew to move here just for me and...argh I just... I don’t get how he can be so...gentle with me and his siblings, but so indifferent to others. I know I’m not making sense, I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t want to be on the full receiving end of that other side of his personality.”

“Mattie, a lot of this stuff sounds like well, stuff you have to talk out with him? As for the gentle with those he loves and not with anyone else, that’s a good thing right? I mean he clearly loves you. It really doesn’t sound weird to me, have you met Alice?” Alfred laughed. Matthew had to chuckle as well. Alice was capable of that duality too. “Seriously bro, he’s not entirely to blame either. I don’t think you’ve taken any of my advice to tell him about the stuff that bothers you so as far as he knows, you’re fine.”

So here Matthew was, faced with the day that he’d actually have to tell Lars that he was goal-less and unsure about his direction...but was too in love to want to risk disappointing him. Was it possible to disappoint your soulmate? Stupid question, of course it was. Being a soulmate didn’t change being two different people with different needs. More, they’d only been together for ten months.

A soft chuckle drew him back to the present. Matthew looked down to see that his soulmate was awake, and probably had been observing him for some time.

  
“Morning. Can’t sleep in?” He rested his hand on top of Matthew’s, which was still clutching the pillow. Again, Matthew had to wonder at the sheer gentleness of it all. 

Matthew just shrugged and smiled.

Lars raised an eyebrow. “You hungry?” 

“Not quite yet, I just woke up.”

Lars nodded and dropped his hand to surround Matthew’s waist, and rolled in closer to nuzzle at his hip. “Good, then a few hours more.”

Matthew had to laugh despite himself. He hadn’t seem Lars act like such a kid for a long time. Somehow that made everything better and he let himself lie back down and drift back into a light doze. If this was all going to go south in a few hours’ time, he may as well enjoy this now.

Later after a nice warm breakfast, they were back in the room. Lars had extended the stay. Matthew wondered how much he was paying for it and realized that this was probably a good sign. Lars wanted to fix this as much as he did. He was likely overreacting and worrying about nothing. Well, not nothing, just more than he should. Matthew made his way to sofa in the room and made himself comfortable there, or at least try to. With the temporary truce coming to an end, the tension was already building in the silence.

“You’re thinking very loudly, but unfortunately I haven’t fully become fluent in ‘Matthew’ enough to be able to read that distant look you get when you do that. I’m going to stop assuming that I know what it means and ask you to translate that for me.” Lars set the room coffee machine going, filling it with a warm and comforting smell.

Out of curiosity, Mathew had to ask. “What did you think it meant eh?” He ended with a laugh. It sounded a little forced to his ears.

“Sometimes I think it’s you trying to figure out if you’re happy with me. So I try to distract you and do something that I hope makes you happy and settles the question. Sometimes I think it’s impatience, but most the time I think you’re just highly introspective. I know that feeling. Sometimes we need to be distracted out of our heads.” Lars shrugged, taking a sip of his coffee before bringing the other cup over. “Right now I think you’re trying to figure out how to say everything you said last night in a much nicer way. If that’s the case, don’t bother, if I’ve been too controlling and more of a taskmaster than what you need me to be at the moment, I’m sorry. But you have to tell me what you need. Maybe you think that you shouldn’t have to spell things out, but in my case, you’ll have to.”

He settled on the couch a little stiffly. Matthew let the cup warm his hands as he breathed in the homely aroma to think of what to say next. “Do you miss the Netherlands?” He eventually asked, unsure why.

Lars looked mildly surprised by the question. “Right now? No. In a few years, I’ll think about it. Do you want to move there now?” He asked a little incredulously.

“No, just...some day I’d like to see where you grew up and the places you love. You left it for me after all, l suppose I wonder if you’re happy here.”

Lars chuckled. “We will, I’d like for you to see it too. Anyway, to answer your first question, it’s been ten months, it’s too early for me to be unhappy. Trust me, if I change my mind, I’ll say so.” He sobered a bit. “You know _liefje_ , I know I never went into details because the past belongs to the past, but I remember when Zahra moved to Amsterdam to be with me, I was initially touched by the gesture, but I felt a sense of responsibility for her as well, it was only fair. On good days that was fine, on bad days I saw her as this weight that I really wished I didn’t have to deal with. She never stopped getting homesick. I didn’t want her to leave but I wanted her to stop moping.  I started planning my days so that they wouldn’t include her. I trained longer, I met up with my other friends, hoping that she would be forced to get out there on her own and find a life that didn’t rely so heavily on me.”

Matthew couldn’t really hide the disapproval he felt. Lars had been honest about his previous relationship not going well, but this admission did nothing to allay Matthew’s fears over how easily this man he loved could cut something off once he deemed it unfit.

“Obviously the more time we spent apart, the more it didn’t make any sense that she was there, to either of us. Not to mention, she wasn’t my soulmate. I’m not proud of that time, and I need to live with how much I hurt her. The point is, seeing as I’ve done the same thing that she did and I’m in line for some karma, I didn’t want to give you an excuse to believe I didn’t need to be here, so I tried to be as helpful and indispensable to you as I could.” Lars gave a wry half-smile. “It’s been overkill hasn’t it?”

Matthew shook his head. “No, I like how driven you are, and if I were more sure of what I was doing, it would be great I just…”

Lars only looked at him, quietly urging him to continue.

Matthew took a breath. Here goes nothing. “I know I told you three months ago that I wanted to be ready to compete again after this year. You’ve been helping me do that. But now that we’re a few months in and I’ve had more time to think, I’m not sure about anything. Two years ago when I applied to McGill, it was for job progression. Then the whole speed skating thing really took over, no thanks to Alfred! And suddenly, speed skating was my thing. I met you and couldn’t believe my luck. The world saw us, there were all these interviews and stories about how I was going to get back on the ice and my country wanted me to win some medals. For the first time, people noticed me, heck people who had never heard of my brother noticed me! Now that it’s calmed down and I’ve had a chance to be myself again instead of being caught up in it all... I don’t know what I want but I don’t think it’s to skate, at least not immediately.”

He looked back at Lars, hoping he wouldn’t see disappointment there. He didn’t, but he didn’t see any other emotion either, just a considering look as the man listened to him.

“So yeah I think I’ve been wasting your time with that. I’m sorry. You’ve been working so hard with me. I didn’t want to disappoint you, and since I didn’t know what I wanted, I figured I shouldn’t just stop. But then all of our time together lately, except this morning, has been training, and skating, and planning my sponsorships...on top of that, you making fun of my team.” Matthew ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. “You left your career and your home for me. I didn’t want to let you down.”

Lars didn’t say anything for a moment, still considering, working up Matthew’s nerves. “Matthew, I’m sorry if I gave you the notion that I wanted you to skate. Or if you felt that I coerced you into it. That wasn’t my intention. If you don’t want to skate, don’t skate.”

Wait, what? His surprise must have shown on his face.

“You’re not exactly a traditional athlete...recognition, medals and glory don’t drive you or you would have started competing professionally at a younger age. You did all for fun, and you ended up being as good as many others who had obsessively trained and cried for years. If we had met while I was younger and still competitive about this, I’d had hated that.”

Matthew sat up straight, gripping his coffee cup.

“But I would have admired you too. We would have had a beautiful rivalry. Now, I just admire you, these watches really know what they're doing. That other quality common to athletes - the drive for perfection of body, mind and spirit.” He paused, considering. “You don’t seek that through one thing alone. You’re a little too multi-talented for that.”

Matthew could have kissed him, except that he still had that considering look on his face. “You’re not just saying that are you?”

Lars smiled subtly, and ran his fingers over Matthew’s cheek, over the stubble that had grown out after an evening and morning without a shave. “Matthew, that chapter of my life is over. I’ve done everything I ever wanted to do in that sport and then some. I don’t exactly need to be back into it, I was just in it for you. So, right now you want a break, it’s no surprise, ten months ago you skated in your first competition and you could have died. No matter how positive and strong you are mentally, your body is very much aware of the trauma. I was a little surprised when you said you wanted to jump right back in, but if that was what you wanted.” He shrugged. “I would make sure you were ready.”

“I’m just afraid that I’m going to change my mind again.” Matthew admitted.

Lars just chuckled and shook his head. “Again, you almost died. You actually have a window to just take a break, no one will think less of you for letting your body heal. Sure, some people get back to competing in a year even after a miraculous survival, but all bodies are different, we get that. If you decide to jump back in later, depending on how old you are, it’s not the end of this career. And besides, you wanting to skate again, it wasn’t really for you is it? It’s about national pride. You want to beat some of my former teammates and get your country some gold medals.” He teased. “I can’t do anything about how proud I am of my team Mathew. But I will stop actively making fun of yours. Well, try to anyway, it’s rather second nature for me, but you tell me when I do!”

Matthew felt some sense of relief, even as he was convinced that something would happen soon and wake him from a dream. Was it really this easy? He was so used to Alfred and Alice’s angst and difficulty that he never realized it could just be as easy as well, just speaking and listening honestly. “I’m sorry, you were forcing yourself to go back to something you already decided to leave...just for me, weren’t you?”

His soulmate just gave a silent shrug. “I was jealous of your time. I wasn’t ready to let us go by and mostly spend our days apart quite yet, the way we would if you do trained on your own after spending hours studying and at classes, or in your project groups.”

All of a sudden, Matthew knew what to do. He had been dreaming about this for months!

“Me too! I mean, I didn’t want to be do things just on my own either, it’s too soon you know? Maybe for all I know, I wanted to skate because I thought it would let me just be with you but now…” He jumped up to stand in front of the other man. “Ride on the train with me!”

Lars shook his head in befuddlement. “Train?”

“Remember when we were talking about you seeing all of Canada? Why wait? I’m healthy enough now to travel, if not to compete, all your training took care of that. I’m already a part-time student and with all the work I’ve been doing I’m kind of ahead actually. So let’s get a sitter for Ninja and Kumajiri, head to my Mom’s for a little while then board the Toronto to Vancouver train! We’ll get off at each stop and I’ll start showing you Canada! It’s getting cold for you though, and I’m not going to take you into the Yukon and Northwest Territories in winter, so we’ll spend the winter in Vancouver, I’ve got friends there, then come spring we’ll head north! East after that into Nunavut, then I’ll show you the eastern provinces. I think you’ll love Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick will probably feel kinda familiar to you for the maritime culture, and then we’ll circle back into Quebec! Gosh Lars, I really want to take you through our Rockies! They’re better than the American ones and I would just feel sad for you if you never really got to experience some truly majestic mountains...I mean it’s different than just seeing them. Oh and I also want...what?”

Lars had just burst out laughing after he spoke about the Rockies, was that truly funny? Finally his soulmate looked up at him with those beautiful green eyes and took his hands. “You don’t mind sharing small spaces with me for a good part of a year, or more than that? I still don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

Matthew had to laugh. Cramped spaces, he and Lars knew without saying it that they’d be sharing cabins, guest houses, tents and homely rooms on this epic trip - Matthew wouldn’t have it any other way, and Lars valued personal time without unnecessary and wasted luxuries. He was getting more and more excited by the minute. “I’m sure we’ll have more things that we’re still discovering about each other, and we’ll disagree over them. But I’m pretty sure that what I want to do right now is to spend more actual time with you, and know you, and love you. And if we hold this off until I retire or something, I’ll regret not asking you to come with me now while we still had the energy, and still you know, excited about exploring together. Who knows? Maybe at the end of this trip we’ll end up with some great idea like...I dunno, going into the maple business!”

Lars raised an amused brow. “From what I’ve read, it’s not profitable to be newcomers, not with your maple syrup cartel, but since we’ll be traveling we can see it first hand.”

Of course he had already looked that up. “Whatever! But I think we’re both looking to be inspired. Let’s do that! Drop off the map! This is what my gut is telling me is right. We had this whole blow up because we were trying to be perfect for each other and I was taking a page out of Alfred’s book, I was too scared to talk to you about it, and...wait you’ve already agreed with me haven’t you?”

With the utmost seriousness, Lars responded. “To the traveling, absolutely. To the maple business...withholding judgement.”

That statement was just...so Lars! Matthew burst out laughing, fell to straddle his rather perfect soulmate and kissed him deeply. Well, as deeply as he could, considering that he still had the giggles and they seemed to be infectious. Lars didn’t let the laughter stop them, eagerly wrapping his arms around Matthew. One hand slid up his back through his hair to hold his head in place, possessive and claiming, while the other drifted down, fingers splaying and grabbing his ass, pulling him even closer. At some point they tried lying down on the couch, which was a disaster because they were both too tall for the couch and too big to be lying down on it together, especially not while trying to move as much as they were.

When they fell to the floor, laughter won out and they had to roll apart. Matthew rolled all the way over to his side, clutching his stomach as his vision blurred from the happy tears falling from his eyes. It was everything - the hilarity of falling off the couch, Lars being Lars and just the sheer relief of it all as he could finally release the tension he had been holding in for months. It had just been one admission, but he already felt lighter. It was probably about time to start trusting his soulmate, it finally occurred to him that what he had been doubting was the system. It wasn’t about the system, it was about the person next to him - still next to him.

Matthew rolled back to see Lars still laughing, and smiled at the sight. His usually stiff hair was still loose over his closed eyes, and that rare smile lit up his whole face. The first time he’d seen it, Matthew swore he’d make Lars smile and laugh as much as possible. It was amazing how easy it was sometimes. The man seemed to find him absolutely adorable. He loved how his scarred and often intimidating Dutchman had this sweet and silly side. Lars didn’t do things by half, and while it was true that he had no qualms about laughing at or cheating those he disliked or was indifferent to, he was patient to those he loved. Matthew simply had to accept that Lars loved him. After all, it was only a small number of loved ones who were allowed to see Lars cuddle with the pet rabbit he had named after a beloved character from his childhood, among many other things.

Of course, Lars realized that Matthew was just looking at him, probably gazing with a stupid look on his face, so Matthew blushed and flicked Lars’ nose. “Don’t get too full of yourself eh. We both know that you’re gorgeous.”

Lars raised an eyebrow along with a smirk. “I really don’t see how I’m supposed to do that when you say that to me. Come here.” He pulled Matthew closer and gave him a soft but lingering kiss. A single long finger caressed Matthew’s cheek as they lay eye-to-eye. “Am I forgiven then? For being an asshole to the people you care about? And taking this long to listen?”

Matthew shrugged. “I need get get better at communicating with you. Honestly, I don’t do it on purpose, I just don’t realize that certain things are issues until...well, they’re issues. I can’t keep expecting you to read my mind either, that’s hardly fair. Am I forgiven?”  

“I suppose we ought to forgive each other for not really trusting ourselves. You thought I’d judge you, didn’t you? I can't blame you for thinking that. I thought if there was no use for me, you deserved better. This trip of yours sounds like just what we need to get over that. Out there, away from the cities, that’s where you’re the happiest. I could tell from the way your face lit up when we went out that one time to the forest. If you’re going to keep my wilderness-stupid ass alive for at least a year, you’re going to have to give me orders, and teach, and I’m going to have to ask.”

“I guess…” Lars had a point though. Matthew couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like, but he was fairly confident that they were going to emerge from this stronger than ever. But first things first, and somehow what he was about to say didn’t sound as frightening as he thought it would. “If we’re dropping off the map for a year, I should give my landlord my one month notice.”

“And it’ll be just enough time to pack, give your Mom enough warning to expect us, tell our friends not to bother us, and find a good sitter for NiJNTje and KumaJIRO.” He pointedly reminded with amusement. “But for now, we still have a night left with this room.”

Matthew swallowed in a bit of nervous anticipation. He knew that hungry look on Lars’ face. “I guess it would be a waste to not use a perfectly good bed.”

Lars chuckled, leaned over and kissed him senseless, pinning him to the floor. “Who said anything about the bed?” He teased once he pulled back. “I was actually thinking of that floor to ceiling mirror in front of the bathroom. You don’t really have mirrors at your place.”

The mirror? Matthew’s apartment was as sparse as he could keep it - student budget paying for a flat in the city and all. At first he was surprised that Lars was comfortable moving into such simple accommodations, before he found out how thrifty the man was. Matthew had savings, but he was happy to live in his almost industrial looking, open brick-walled rental of his. He liked the stripped down look actually, but it did mean that the only mirror in the whole place was the one in the bathroom. Lars never mentioned missing the mirror before.

“Don’t get it? Come on.” Lars pulled him up and grinned the few steps over to the mirror, placing Matthew in front of him and pulling both his shirt and hoodie off together. The sudden movement made Matthew yelp and untangle his glasses from the top of his head. “The thing about a mirror this big, is that…” He leaned down, nipped Matthew’s ear and lowered his voice. “You get to see everything we’re about to do. So this time, put your glasses back on.”

Afterwards, Matthew lay on the carpet, breathing hard. He was a mess with rug burns on his knees and legs and other random parts of the body between, but feeling so sated and worshiped. Matthew had to fight off the natural inclination to sleep, but he wasn’t really in the land of ‘absolutely awake’ either. Focusing on the simple light on the ceiling right above where he was lying down on the floor, he thought to himself ‘when we get back, I’m getting the biggest fucking mirror I can buy and it’s going into the bedroom’. There was something different about clearly seeing yourself at the center of another person’s world in such intimacy that shifted everything. Matthew wasn’t used to thinking of himself as the center of anything.

Matthew yawned. “Ah...I think the bed is sounding good right now.”

“Hmm.”

He turned to see Lars caught in a similar afterglow. Laughing, Matthew managed to raise himself from their cramped space in that ridiculously narrow short hallway (dear God, housekeeping! And they were so close to the door, people must have heard...forget that, Matthew was feeling so good right now, he didn’t really care) and pull Lars to the bed.

  
One month later, as promised, they awaited their epic adventure around Canada. Holding Lars’ hand on the train, Matthew gazed out hungrily at the country he loved, eager to show it to the man sitting next to him. He’d fight to keep this feeling; the warm feeling of home and rightness that he had only found when Lars entered his life, despite the violent circumstances of their meeting. It felt like all that had happened until now was a prologue on their story together in this life. Now, he was ready for their actual chapter to begin.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! If you found this fic, thank you for taking the time to read it, I hope it entertained you. This last chapter was very different from what I originally planned to write but I hope it’s still enjoyable in its way. The original plan involved more actual speed skating, but this way, I figure we’re free to imagine their happy future however we want to. Now that this fic is done, I want to return to 'Unity' (I've been saying that, but I've experienced so much writer's block. I hope this time that changes).
> 
> Now for story notes:
> 
> Indonesian  
> Ibu - Mother  
> Bego lo - You stupid  
> *thanks heaps to [magma_maiden](http://archiveofourown.org/users/magma_maiden) for the fix. For Indonesia's name as well.  
> Aduh - A slang term, usually used in exasperation  
> Monyet - Monkey...the story here is that another name for the Probiscus monkey in Indonsia is 'monyet Belanda' or 'Dutch Monkey'. 
> 
> On the relationship between Lars and Zahra, obviously it’s not a direct interpretation of the historical relationship between the Netherlands and Indonesia, which was pretty damn dark at the end. What I was hoping to capture a little of instead is the reality that significant and positive connections exist between the Netherlands and Indonesia today. I originally wrote a lot more here about the history of Dutch/Indonesian relations but ran out of characters, so if you're curious, here are some links:  
> 1\. [A general history of the relationship](https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/explore-the-collection/timeline-dutch-history/1820-1950-indonesia-and-decolonisation) (colonialism in this case wasn't the usual story, the Dutch didn't sail into the islands, plant a flag and go "I claim these islands in the name of the House of Orange!" it was more like "we're good at doing business, you're a center for spice trade, let's make some sweet sweet money" until they monopolized trade on the islands)
> 
> 2\. The end of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia which was accompanied by the Dutch torturing and killing a lot of people ([here for accounts from victims](http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/dutch-apology-indonesian-atrocities-opens-old-wounds/), and [here for accounts from the soldiers who did it](https://www.rnw.org/archive/black-page-dutch-history) though for this at least, [the Netherlands has issued an apology](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-24060913)) 
> 
> 3\. An [example of cool collaboration in the present day](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/energy/2015/12/151210-could-titanic-seawall-save-this-quickly-sinking-city/).
> 
> Let’s break up some of that heaviness with some cuteness - Nijntje! This well-loved bunny is [known to the rest of the world as Miffy](http://www.miffy.com). Recognize that bunny? ‘Ninja’ is because I can’t really pronounce Nijntje correctly *fail. 
> 
> Quebec - if you want to have a good laugh, play a Quebecois French movie to a European French speaker and observe the look they get on their face listening to the accent. Apparently the accent is *that* different. If you’re interested in getting a little summary of the history between French and English Canadians (again, complicated, filled with freedom fighters and unintentional/intentional misunderstandings), the [AskHistorians podcast did an episode on Canadian identity that is quite engaging](http://askhistorians.libsyn.com/askhistorians-podcast-048-canadian-identity).
> 
> Ah a trip around Canada. The Netherlands can fit into Canada a little over 250 times, according to Google. If you’re not in Canada, but interested in taking a trip to Canada in your own home, I recommend that you watch [ Ray Mears’ Northern Wilderness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHskQCieJ6k&list=PLFQEJLjxKtsNSUw6tduhx5nag4j5-YOkP). He highlights the lives of the First People’s and their amazing bushcraft skills, and also delves into how the fur trade, and then the Hudson Bay Company opened up what we now know today as Canada. He traces the footsteps of Samuel Hearne (who mapped two-thirds of Canada on foot with a traditional sextant and mostly defined the border between the US and Canada which is used today). I think Lars is enough of a cartography geek to appreciate being on the trail of Hearne. 
> 
> [Demisexuality](http://demisexuality.org/articles/what-is-demisexuality/) \- personal headcanon that Matthew is demisexual, that is, only capable of feeling sexual attraction once he feels a strong emotional and romantic bond to his partner. Why does he not realize this? I suppose it’s a little personal, this... I’m demisexual and I’ve only ever met one other demisexual...we had no clue that ‘demisexuality’ was actually a thing. I feel like it’s easy to miss unless you go looking for it or stumble upon it.

**Author's Note:**

> I had such a hard time finding NedCan fics that I somehow ended up imagining this up instead? This fic follows sports anime limits of realism, everyone is extremely good in an exaggerated fashion :P
> 
> Speed skating is a Dutch-dominated winter sport, especially in the regular/long-track speed skating category.  
> For a more instructional video on speed skating itself and how it works, well, this is in-line speed skating, but it's basically similar, just on land, [click here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0ZNmMlRTB8)
> 
> Rabobank is a Dutch multi-national cooperative bank that specializes in primary industry. Basically that means that the bank is not owned by shareholders as most banks are, and in the Netherlands they mostly work with farmers (the bank was founded by farmers). Other than that, they operate like any other bank, they trade, they sell loan products, etc. It’s not a weird thing that Lars has a regular job and basically is a professional sportsman (okay, it’s a little weird), but more than half of the working population of the Netherlands works part-time. It’s totally acceptable there and hey, they’re obviously productive (I’m so jealous, that’s totally not a thing where I am). Curious? This [article](http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/05/economist-explains-12) explains it.
> 
> 'Oma' is Dutch for grandmother. *thanks to [Hana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Bambi_Eyes/pseuds/Hanatamago2204) for the fix!
> 
> I didn't want the usual Hetalia characters to be the obvious villains so I made Tony the Alien human. Eheh. The bit about Matthew lapping Tony was inspired by this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YlXwMcYeuo) of...exactly that, one world champion getting lapped by another world champion (but once, not twice because this is real life and not a sports anime).


End file.
